


On Picnics and Things

by Davechicken



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23019817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Crowley decides he will take Aziraphale for that picnic.It turns out more fun than expected.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 117





	On Picnics and Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Patolozka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patolozka/gifts).



Aziraphale had mentioned the idea of a picnic several times over the years. Always in that breezy ‘oh it might be nice if----’ tone that meant he wanted this quite a lot. He hadn’t outright pushed, but he’d done the Aziraphale equivalent of it. 

Crowley had to admit he hadn’t been able to see the appeal. Food was alright, but food was better given to the angel. Crowley could enjoy it, but he enjoyed it more when Aziraphale ate it. And then there was the whole… why would you sit on a blanket on the grass?

Chairs. Benches. Hell, restaurants existed, now. Nature was all very nice (and he liked it more than he should), but did he really want to get that close to it, now he had the option not to?

But now, after the End That Wasn’t, and after asking the angel to unthink everything he’d ever thought and fight alongside him, refusing him this little indulgence seemed a bit petty, even for him. 

He could compromise. For Aziraphale.

The ebullient glee and clasped hands he got when he turned up with the twee little wicker basket was worth the pain, he decided, as he watched Aziraphale fuss and fret and bounce around the bookshop like a bee with too many flowers to know where to land first. 

“You have the glasses?”

“Yes, angel.”

“And the jam?”

“Yes, angel.”

“And the--”

“Anything I don’t have, I will make sure we get,” Crowley insisted, rolling his eyes and wishing he didn’t find this flustering so damn cute. What was wrong with him? Did he have no taste whatsoever? 

“You really are a darling,” Aziraphale insisted, off-handedly throwing nice terms his way.

It sounded off-hand. It was probably absolutely on purpose, to make him fluster, too. It’s just he did it by prickling up like a hedgehog, and not puffing up like a peacock who had one too many frothy coffees.

***

Aziraphale fussed over where to put the blanket. He wanted to see the lake. But he didn’t want to be too close to the path. And he didn’t want too much sun in his eyes, but also if it was too shady it would be too cold. Close enough to hear voices, but not conversation. Absolutely no dogs or frisbees to wander their way. 

Crowley followed, listening, then nodded to a spot that should be perfect for Goldilocks. “What about there?”

“Oh, my dear fellow, how perfect.”

You had to know how to handle him.

***

Picnics weren’t as bad as he thought, but maybe because he’d supplemented the excessively-prepared food with generous libations. It was all pretentious performance art. Food beyond basic sustenance was performance art. Taking the time to show the world you were important, or maybe that was just what Crowley took away from it. 

And considering how much effort he put into looking ‘cool’, he probably shouldn’t judge.

The demon lounged back on one arm, holding a tall flute of fizzing alcohol and bubbling berries in one idle hand. 

They didn’t need to do this. Didn’t need to eat. Or drink. But here he was, on a late summer’s afternoon, with the distant sound of children fiercely enjoying their last shreds of freedom. With this cultivated patch of nature nestled between industry and government. A monument to Humanity’s longing for the garden they’d left behind, and a joint voice saying: this is too important to lose.

He was here, in his perfectly cut black clothes, with his frumpy and frilly companion. Perhaps if anyone glanced their way, they would be confused by the nouveau and the nostalgic on a tartan blanket with pastries, finger-foods, and expensive alcohol. 

Crowley wanted them to be. He wanted them to wonder. And he wanted them to know.

Crowley had his angel. And the planet. And they were his, and he wasn’t letting go.

Aziraphale gave his enthusiastic feedback on everything Crowley had packed, along with memories of other versions of the same foods, or memories of times they’d eaten them together. It wasn’t necessary, but it was nice. He was talking to be companionable, to fill the silence, but it wasn’t pressured. He was just… freely moving his tongue over thoughts that morphed like the clouds overhead. 

The angel was usually more self-conscious, self-editing. But now he was in full sway, rejoicing in all the things they-- ah. All the things they’d saved. Which he’d turned into a momentary history of cuisine, because it was easier to talk about than everything else.

Between it, though, were those memories. The taste of lemon tart was linked to the ships and how dreadful it had been to stay on them for any extended period. The bread was memories of rushed times in Egypt, dashing out before the sun rose. The sausage rolls were warmth against a winter cold, and their breath fogging and mingling as they conspired at the back of a crowd. 

Crowley grinned.

“You got mad at me when I threw the nuts.”

“It was rude,” the angel insisted.

“He was a rubbish Bottom. You can’t play that role and not mean it.”

“He was rather a _good_ Bottom, just not the best,” Aziraphale chided him. “And how can they ever get better if you ruin their confidence on their debut performance?”

“Better than letting him think he was the bee’s knees and him getting his head full of it. And you know precisely who I mean.”

Aziraphale did, and chose to answer by eating more nuts. 

He missed that. The more raucous interactions. You couldn’t go to Broadway or the West End and hurl your Pringles at people. Probably couldn’t even eat them, now, because of the crunching distracting everyone. Had to go to a pantomime if you wanted to heckle. Maybe he’d drag the angel along, in the holiday season.

Crowley still wouldn’t have chosen this, but he could see why Aziraphale had. They were a little away from prying eyes, so they could talk more openly than they would at a tea shop, or at the Ritz. It was more homely, less… performative. Less need to blend in. 

And much as he’d moved in and out of the bookshop as suited him over the many years, Crowley knew that place was ‘Aziraphale’ and that the angel wanted something more… them. Neutral, or shared spaces. Maybe a little longing for a garden, long ago. One that hadn’t belonged to them, and one they hadn’t been able to stay in. 

The sun was nice. Could be warmer, but he tilted his head up to bask in it nonetheless. You didn’t get the ridiculous extremes of temperature here, and maybe that was the point. No burning hellfire, no freezing holy water. Lukewarm. Room temperature. Sedate.

Aziraphale moved the conversation on, cycling through his favourite performances, and remaining solidly several decades behind the times when he came up to ‘modern’. He was never one for new inventions. They had to be tried, tested, true and traditional for him.

Crowley did the early adopting. And then gradually dragged the angel behind in his wake, once he could prove it was fine and wouldn’t explode, or end the world, or whatever else the angel worried about. Part of him wondered if the deliberate obsolescence was because he liked to make the demon spend time explaining things. 

Which was fine. He liked to explain. Even if sometimes he made up the answers, because things worked how he wanted them to, more often than not.

Crowley wanted to invite the angel to recline with him. To look up at the clouds, and name them. That’s what you did, wasn’t it? On picnics. If you hadn’t just come to run your children out of energy. If you’d come to spend time together, somewhere alive and not-in-not-out. A liminal space, formalising nature and taking the table from between you.

How could he? How could he say that? Neither them asked much for anything. It was all suggestion, implication. It was selling things, or bringing ideas up (like picnics) and hoping. You only outright asked for something if the world was ending. 

But did he need to? Everything was… okay, so it was slow. They’d always been slow. Him nudging, Aziraphale puffing up in defence, and then things settling that little bit closer. Over and over, a dance they knew the steps to.

He could ask. Aziraphale might even accept. But Crowley didn’t want to, because he didn’t want to startle him. And because it meant more if--

“Is that even comfortable, my dear?” the angel asked.

It meant more if Aziraphale chose to do things, without prompting. It told Crowley it wasn’t just one-sided. It reassured him that this - whatever this, them was - was real.

“Not so bad,” he replied. “Kind of like Rome.”

“Oh! Yes!”

Apparently that had been the right memory to recount, the right way to approach him. Shared experiences linked to current ones. The angel rustled, then - as deliberately as ever - moved to prop beside him.

Only, in Roman times, it would be around a square inner table, where you had some distance and it was very decorous.

Here, he was facing Crowley, almost nose to nose. It was almost indecent, and the angel’s rosy cheeks were like the apples beginning to ripen, looking ready to pluck.

“This is rather fun, isn’t it?” he breathed, giddily.

“Not bad,” was all Crowley could reply. They could be eating on the moon for all he really cared. Or not eating. Or whatever, so long as he had an excuse to be here. 

He’d been alone for so very long, but not quite. With Aziraphale almost there, then there, then gone. And the more time they spent together, the harder it got to be apart for long. 

He had literally no one else. In part through circumstance, and in greater part, through choice. This blasted bird was just… he made him laugh. And smile. And feel comfortable. He made him feel like he wasn’t the worst thing She ever made. And he made the world worth bearing with.

Aziraphale was grinning like a love-struck fool, letting that free and easy appreciation wash over him. Crowley had watched it, over the years. Watched the stolen moments that the angel had claimed for himself, taking the time to revel in this world. In a book, in a meal, in a sunset. In a piece of music, in a bottle of wine.

Sensations. Creations. 

Had he revelled, too, in the company? Had he enjoyed the times they’d spent together, as much as Crowley had? He hadn’t believed him (entirely) when he’d denied their friendship, but the last time had hurt. He’d put everything on the line, all but thrown his heart at the angel’s feet.

Run. Run with me. Run.

But they hadn’t, and maybe that was for the best. After all, now they had the world. Literally. It was theirs, as much as it was anyone’s. 

The angel turned his face heavenward, soaking in the same sun. Feeling it not so much beat down, as gently tinkle. It went slowly in, heating the dark fabric of Crowley’s clothes, and turning cold treats warm, and hot treats… warm, but cooler than they had been. 

For a while, they simply existed. Side by side, not quite touching. Sharing space, sharing a moment in time. They had all of those they wanted, now, didn’t they? There was no reason to look over the shoulder, or to hold back for fear of reprisal. They could go to dinner like old friends. They could get on the bus and not have to whisper over shoulders. They could meet at the park, not because it was a set place, but because they rather liked to people-watch and feed ducks. 

Everything had changed, and nothing had. 

“Do you-- did---?”

A momentary concern, crossing his brow. Crowley turned to see it. “Mmm?”

“I just… oh, it’s nothing.”

Crowley saw a hand had been placed between them, on the blanket. Not beyond half the distance, but not less, either.

“You did a good job,” he assured him, and patted the back of said hand.

Aziraphale turned it, and offered his palm. Crowley took it. It was warm, and he could feel the thud of his heart.

“I also did a bad job,” the angel said, with something like teasing in his tone.

“You did a good job at doing a bad job,” he replied, fighting another grin. Why, oh why, oh why. Why did it hurt so much, to be - to be happy? Like his face ached from the grin. Like his chest was heavy, but a heaviness like - like a thick, familiar coat in winter. Warm inside. It hurt, but he didn’t want to stop.

“I think… if we did it again, I wouldn’t change too much.” Aziraphale ran his thumb slowly, absently, against Crowley’s palm. “Perhaps I would be a little kinder.”

“Nah,” Crowley rebuffed, though he appreciated the sentiment. “I like a bit of rough.”

He could have done with a little less of it, but he didn’t want to think about changing the past. You couldn’t do it. Hell had taught him that. You lived with what you had, and you kept going. 

He’d chosen Aziraphale, even knowing all the obstacles. Even knowing it was difficult. He’d accepted that. And - a few spats aside - it had been enough. More than enough. At times, wonderful. At others… so painful he’d wanted to drink himself to death.

Crowley remembered the fire, and the thought - made real - of loss. Of never again hearing Aziraphale say ‘The Scottish Play’ when he tried to trick him into bad luck. Of never again hearing him laughing at the terrible accents when people spoke Latin on television. Of not seeing the sparkle in those eyes. Or resting on a couch that smelled of him, of home. Of a world without.

His hand tightened. Stay. Stay. Don’t go. Don’t leave me again.

The angel knew, and turned his head, as Crowley turned his. Noses nearly touching, and that aching, yearning, strange thing. 

Did he kiss him? Did they need to? They almost didn’t. He could remember how the angel’s body felt to walk around in. He knew him - knew him so intimately - was kissing a good idea, or not? Was it what they’d wanted? Or was it just a Human formality?

(He wanted it, on some level. Not for the physical sensation, but the… ceremony. The agreement, the pact. Our side. **Our** side. Their bond was something words hadn’t been crafted for, and once a thing had a name, it became Real in a new way.)

But to do it was to change. To change this, them. And he wasn’t sure it needed to, or maybe he liked this tension? This almost-there? A kind of sweet torture, and insecurity? Was it that he didn’t think he deserved the complete happiness that it supposedly contained? Did he like to torture himself with wanting? 

What if they kissed and it was boring? Nothing like he’d worked up in his head and… just how long had he been denying he wanted to?

“May I confess something?” Aziraphale asked.

“Y-yeah.” His voice was shredded to pieces.

“I… may like a little ‘rough’, too.”

Which was as close to a come-on as it was possible to get without stripping naked and saying ‘Do me, snake-boy’, wasn’t it?

Crowley laughed. And Aziraphale looked - for a moment - hurt and confused. 

“What?”

“You-- I’m sorry. Angel, you…” Crowley shook his head, and then tried to meet his eyes. “You do realise that it’s no confession, right? Your best friend is a demon, and you used to regularly get yourself in mild to moderate peril on a regular basis, if I didn’t pay you enough attention.”

“I did not!”

“Bastille. That time in the Great Fire. The time in Marrakech. The--”

“...that wasn’t because I was looking for attention.”

“Oh, so you just like being kidnapped, chained up, stuck in terrifying situations that might make Humans nervous, but for you, are actually quite easy to get out of?”

His bottom lip pushed into his top one, as Aziraphale tried not to look amused, and feigned a pout. “You were always more likely to arrive if you could be my knight in shining armour, because you wanted to feel useful and important, and like you weren’t as bad as you thought you were.”

“What?”

“I knew you wanted to feel better, and I wanted to feel… like I mattered, and… don’t you look at me like that!”

Crowley had never actually flipped it around. It had just seemed automatic to him to save Aziraphale. It was - you know - important. He was important. And… he just was, okay? Crowley would have done almost (and indeed, probably) anything to keep him safe. 

He hadn’t thought that, maybe, Aziraphale had been reaching out to something deeper in him, too.

“We were a pair of idiots, weren’t we?” he said, instead, a little softly. 

“I knew you would never accept if I just asked you to visit for purely social reasons,” Aziraphale answered.

“Not true. I would have come in a heartbeat.”

The angel paused, his hand clutching, then softening. “Well, perhaps I couldn’t ask. So I found another way to.”

“It worked.” It had definitely worked. They had both survived, and spent as much time together as they’d been able to. They were here, now, weren’t they?

The angel sucked in his lips, then shuffled his frame closer. It bunched the blanket up, but eventually he was pressed along the demon’s side, and had propped his head on his shoulder. 

Close. Comfortable. Nothing ended. Nothing exploded. Except, maybe, Crowley’s heart.

“This is rather scandalous,” whispered Aziraphale. “What if anyone were to see?”

“Two middle-aged men cuddling on a picnic blanket, or an angel and a demon being friends?”

A punch to his arm, and he yelped in protest. 

“We’re in _public_.”

“It’s not the nineteenth century, angel. Pretty sure anyone who has seen us in the past decade is sure we’re either living in sin, or married and don’t like rings.”

“I wear a ring!”

“So, sin it is,” Crowley pointed out, lifting the hand to kiss the pinky that held the ring. “Because that’s the wrong finger.”

Aziraphale bubbled like a kettle ready to be poured, and then stuck his nose up in the air. “It isn’t as if you treat me well enough for that.”

“I don’t?”

“Absolutely not.”

“And I’m lacking in what respect?” This was almost-dangerous, but still with that eager, hopeful edge of nearly-teasing-mocking-lightness that could rescue any deeper issues. 

“For one, you have utterly failed to seduce me, and--”

That was twice, now. Two attempts, and Crowley was pretty sure it was Aziraphale-speak for ‘get on and do it already’, or as close as he’d get. So he lowered the hand, and leaned over, and he pressed his lips to the shocked ones he found.

It could be just a ‘joke’, just a jest. He could brush it off, for a hundred years or longer. It wouldn’t break the world, just because he’d touched his lips to soft, still-sugary ones. 

Just because he lay back, and his heart was insane, and the world was passing by, and his angel’s eyes were closed with a look of pure, smug, self-satisfied contentment. 

He looked at that face. All soft curves and emotion that played over every plane. The lashes that graced his cheeks. The halo of curls above his brow. 

“I told you,” Aziraphale purred, still floating on the single kiss. “I like a little ‘rough’.”

Crowley knew what that meant, and maybe for them, rough was nothing more than kissing here, under the trees and the clouds and the sun. Maybe it was kissing for the next six thousand years, interspersed with private jokes and public displays of muted appreciation. 

Kissing was nice, though. He could get behind that. Maybe in his car. Maybe in the rain. Maybe - oh the scandal - a peck on the cheek after dinner, where anyone could see? 

They went at their own pace, and that was fine. He shuffled to let the angel - his angel - rest his head on his shoulder again, and he wrapped an arm around him to better feel his warmth. 

“Well. I guess I don’t mind a bit of… ‘soft’,” he admitted, very lowly, into pale hair. 

The sun stayed up just that little bit longer than it should have, at least for them. 

Picnics got added to the list of acceptable things to do with Aziraphale. But next time, he would bring less scotch eggs and more scotch.


End file.
